Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Podcast 11 covers a little bit more of transitive animate verbs (conjunct for 1/2 > 3 direct and 3 > 4 direct) and dives into a little bit of "Clue". I think it gives a lot of information, so I'm probably going to plan podcast 12 a bit more and do another game of "Clue" with a few new words. In some ways, I think another couple dozen lessons and there'd be enough info to start learning from other sources or from a speaker - just the next lessons are going to be building slower for a while as there's a lot of info that needs to be solidified before I can move on a lot.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Here's three more lessons. Lessons 8 and 9 go over some vocabulary and a few fairly straightforward concepts. The recording is better, but it's a little less structured. Lesson 10 introduces transitive animate verbs and a couple ways of making them from transitive inanimate ones. Clearly fascinating! At least to me. I'll limit myself to making two tomorrow so as not to take too much time from homework.

Friday, March 16, 2012

So, this afternoon after teaching two classes I decided that the time had come to just start making some podcasts - Michif audio lessons. However, rather than spending five hours designing each lesson, two hours recording, and another four hours editing, I decided to just wing it, do shorter lessons, make them a little more compact, and prep them on the fly. I'm happy to report it's working good so far, so here's the first seven lessons! I'm expecting plenty of questions about them, so feel free to ask away.

The lessons are sequential, and are slowly working through a scope and sequence that I developed some time ago with a more ambitious plan in mind, but I've decided that if I don't do it now it might be years before I ever get the time or resources to do it professionally, so I'm just diving right in.

For those of you who are wondering, I'm not a native speaker, though I am fairly fluent. I know the grammar quite well, which is what I'm focusing on outlining here for you.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

I just got back from spending two days on the harder half of the Juan de Fuca trail (pictures to follow), and what an adventure! My legs hurt, my feet hurt, my shoulders hurt, even my eyes are a little sore, clearly I had a good time.

About 10km in I started thinking about how doing this trip compared to picking mushrooms. Strange how every time I'm hiking the first thing I think about is mushrooms. Anyways - I was trying to compare the two activities - hiking in a straight line vs hiking while hunting for something, and I came up with the following contrasts.

One: they're both tough. While we were hiking I argued that picking mushrooms was harder, but in reality, they're both tough. The terrain we were hiking was all up and down (same picking mushrooms) and we were carrying packs (lighter than when I'm picking mushrooms) but generally I stash my pack and run areas up and down with a lighter bucket. Hunting I'm off trails, over and under logs, but then I don't have to walk through mud. I do however have to push my way through trees. If I'm stuck out after dark while hiking I just keep following the trail, but if I'm picking mushrooms I have to find my way with no trail in the dark. Looking at this hike in particular, it's almost always a lot colder outside while I'm hunting mushrooms - but then I'm a lot warmer when I'm sleeping at home! Definitely a sleeping bag is something I need to take with me next time (my own was in Alberta). After thinking it all through though, I have to go with hunting mushrooms. Don't get me wrong, I loved the hike - it was great time with friends, and I do enjoy pushing myself to the max, but it was different some how...

After looking at all these differences, I really just came up with one difference that actually matters to me, and that is my frame of mind while doing each one. While I'm walking a ridge hunting mushrooms, I'm constantly looking left, right, ahead, behind, searching for spots of white, needle-beds, bumps in the moss that weren't there before or that look like they might be young. I'm looking for signs that someone else was in my patch, I'm watching for animals, listening for things that don't sound right (especially while I'm alone!) or don't look right. I'm scouting, keeping track of the area I've covered, deciding on the best route to cover all of the territory without running out of energy. When I'm hiking a trail, it feels like all I'm thinking about is putting one foot in front of the other.

Not that I'm not thinking about other things, but it's not the same. I look at a hillside while hiking, I'm not looking for anything in particular. Sure I try to "appreciate" it for it's natural beauty, but my mind flashes over it without really registering anything. I see a beach, sure it's beautiful, but I just don't interact with the environment in the same way as I do when I'm there with a purpose.

I'm sure with time I could learn to appreciate just walking, and to some extent I do, and perhaps if I had never done either before I might enjoy (or hate) both picking mushrooms and hiking equally... but for that to be the case I would have to find a reason for me to study the location with the same intensity I use when hiking through a patch, and so far I can't think of what that might be.

And, I think that this train of thought might apply to other aspects of my life as well. So there's some more food for thought.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Take two pots, one for broth, one for steaming. Into the one for steaming put three giant carrots cut up, a big turnip (cut up), half a cabbage, and a couple potatoes (add the potatoes later on).

Into the broth pot add a bunch of water, then mung beans, cook for a while, then add half a can of leftover blackbeans, a half quart of canned tomatoes, leftover tomato sauce, an onion cut up, some onion powder, italian seasoning, tumeric, salt, a scoop of peanut butter, some pepper of some sort, a bit of brewer's yeast, and then bring it to a boil for a while. Also add a little bit of oil - I used some canola and peanut oil, but not much since the peanut butter is already pretty oily.

Dump the veggies into the broth, and serves ten, at a minimum! as it is three of us had a good meal, and I'm eating leftovers for breakfast, and freezing the rest to use as a base for the next soup I make.

What I'd do differently.... maybe use frozen peas to cool it down instead of frozen corn. Gotta use one though cuz i'm just too impatient to wait for it to cool down! also... maybe add some spinach to the broth at the end, or some grated zucchini...

Served with sourdough bread, toasted, and fresh cauliflower and broccoli with some dip.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

I've decided to start a blog rather than just allowing my comment history on reddit to stand in for my personal diary. Not that that isn't already more or less my diary - but it leaves a lot out. It only documents those aspects of my life where my personal interests either mesh or conflict with the hivemind, and as I am more than just a subset of popculture, I'm hoping this blog will allow me to develop those other parts of who I am. As to what those parts are, I don't even know myself, except to say that at least some of what I write here will involve linguistics, social and cultural theory, the stories of Christianity, and cooking.